April 2018 GSM Results

Hello everyone! The April 2018 GSM has concluded. It was a much shorter meeting (he says, proceeding to write 1,600+ words anyway) than the last few, but there were still some important conversations, and we’ve got announcements to share!

Update 2018-04-18: The dynmap render has now concluded. You can view the updated dynmap here.

Staffing updates

Two moderators — Omricon and Ortem — have been demoted due to prolonged inactivity, and administrator BaronThamesBank has voluntarily stepped down. We are grateful to all three for all of their contributions to the server and community during their combined ten years of service, and wish them the best in their future endeavors.

BaronThamesBank and Omricon are now both [Senator]s, while Ortem is now a [Trustee].

We did not offer trial mod positions to any new candidates at this GSM, but we will be evaluating staffing levels at the next few GSMs in preparation for the busy summer season. If you’d like to nominate someone for the moderator position, please let us know.

New World Dynmap Render Starts April 15/16

Due to its size, the New World is not rendered fully on dynmap on a regular basis, but rather approximately twice a year (in addition to localized renders as requested). The last render was in September, and now that many students are preparing for exams, traffic is low enough that we can run our dynmap render this week before The Mole 9 starts on Saturday, April 21.

The New World dynmap render will begin at 4:00 AM UTC on Monday, April 16, and may take up to four full days to complete. A few other things to keep in mind during the rendering process:

No WorldEdits will be permitted while the render is in progress.

Players who use Schematica are asked to refrain from using the printer function until the render finishes.

Renders of other worlds will be cancelled this week and will resume on their regular schedule next week.

Reminders will be provided at regular intervals in game.

We expect the rendering process to cause lag – this is normal, so please don’t complain about it as there is nothing we can do about it.

Redstone devices may be slightly more out of sync than normal. Please take extra care while building or operating redstone devices, as they may produce unexpected results.

Thank you for your cooperation while we update the dynmap! We’re excited to see how much your cities and towns have grown since the last time we’ve updated the full map.

Update 2018-04-18: The render is now complete. WorldEdits and Schematica printing are now permitted once again. Thank you for your cooperation!

New plugins: Citizens and DiscordSRV

We’ve opened the beta server for public testing, and would love your feedback on two new plugins: Citizens and DiscordSRV. We plan to install these on the main server in the next few weeks.

We are fixing issues as fast as they are reported – permission issues with Citizens should now be all fixed, and some tweaks have been made on the staff-specific channels on DiscordSRV.

Two new changes for Citizens specifically that we will carry over to the main server:

Trustees and above can spawn most types of NPCs, but ghasts and ender dragons are restricted to staff.

The number of NPCs you can spawn will increase gradually with your rank as follows, much like personal homes:

[Trustee]: 5 NPCs

[Councillor]: 10 NPCs

[Mayor]: 20 NPCs

[Senator]: 30 NPCs

[Governor]: 50 NPCs

[Premier]: 100 NPCs

Staff: Unlimited

As always, please send us your feedback and bug reports while you test these plugins out.

Smaller community-issue updates

In response to a question that arose at the last GSM, there is no policy or rule prohibiting players from selling towns for in-game money. Please be reasonable about this; if we find that towns are being “flipped” (purchased and then re-sold for profit), auctioned unfairly, or other activities that are unfair or unwelcoming, we may ban this practice in the future. Furthermore, agreements of payment are private matters between the buyer and seller; staff members will not record the amount of payment and we will not help you collect on it if the buyer refuses to pay. If you choose to sell your town for a price, you are still responsible for emailing the staff to let us know of the transfer.

A new Discord channel #entertainment has been created, to facilitate discussion of other pop-culture topics including movies and TV shows. Please keep musical discussion to #music, and memes to #random or the subreddit.

Frumple will be enabling SVG file uploads on the wiki in the near future.

Roads

We received seven proposals for roads and approved six of them:

An extension to the B54 from Malliston to Paixton, proposed by jamess__, has been approved.

An unnumbered B-road, proposed by MojangChan to connect Deadbush to Totswoth, has been approved and numbered B60.

Phase One of the B82, proposed by CrazyRocketGuy to connect Armada to Snowdin, has been partially approved. The portion of the road up to Snowdin is good to go, with the exception of the connection to Cicero (A28).

The B94, proposed by SoSo123 to connect Stoneedge and Quiris, has been approved. Since these towns are close together (within about 300 blocks), a formal proposal was not needed to build a road between them, so long as both players were okay with the project. However, we have approved this project and reserved the number B94 in case either player wishes to extend the road further.

Players who wish to build roads to a town within 300 blocks of their own do not need GSM approval. If you plan on extending the road beyond your two towns would like to build it as a B-road, please email us to reserve your road number. Full GSM approval is still required for A-roads and longer or disjoint B-roads.

An extension to the A4, proposed by Just_robinho to continue bringing the A4 due east to the terminus of the Forest Line, has been approved.

An extension to the A1, proposed by the United Cities Transit Committee, has been partially approved and amended. We have approved the proposed alignment up to ZN32, as well as a direct alignment that goes straight through ZN25 and ZN26, as neither of these stations have substantial enough development to be called “claimed”. This road must stop before reaching Chalxior and any further extensions proposed at a future GSM.

An extension of the A8, proposed by EliteNeon to run between Vegeta and Rank Resort via ZN43, has been denied. EliteNeon has not secured any permissions from town mayors along the route and sent in screenshots of the dynmap from a mobile device. Before this extension can be re-submitted, all mayors along the route must approve of the road, and maps cannot be submitted as screenshots from a mobile phone as they are too small.

Property auctions

We received six requests for property auctions and approved all of them:

C65/D23 Canre: Transferred to jamess__.

D21: Transferred to CaptLincoln.

ZS16: Transferred to Minecrafts000.

MRT Phone Network: Transferred to Frosty_Creeper10.

SkyWest Airlines: Transferred to Cortesi.

Yelo Corporation: Transferred to BernCow.

Miscellaneous topics

This time around our “Other” section was actually quite full of miscellaneous projects and requests:

A proposal by MindBender to relocate A9 (Radiance Square) Station underground has been denied. We think there is plenty of space near A9 for MindBender to work with, and buildings are allowed to straddle the tracks (just be reasonable about the clearance). If there is a clear need for above-ground space and a plan to use the newly freed space in place, we may reconsider this proposal at a later date.

The next line to open will be the MRT Southern Line East (SLE). It is currently being constructed with one station missing, SE13 Southport. The station will be installed at a later date, but the line is cleared to finish construction and open at the next GSM, possibly without SE13 for now. Look for a station request form in the near future!

The Jungle Line North (JLN) is now open between JS1 and JN16. The following stations have been awarded to players. Please note: by the time you see this post, the other stations may have been claimed, but they’re certainly worth a look if you’re looking to start a new town!

JN15 and JN16: CaptainChimpy (Verdantium)

JN12: existing town

JN11: Kel5

JN7: CaptLincoln

JN6: existing town

The next GSM has not been scheduled yet, for those planning ahead.

F15-P17

Yes, an “other” topic that warrants its own heading, because several actions came out of the discussion.

An ownership dispute at F15-P17 was discussed after Callumjk brought it to our attention that the buildings he built there had been razed by other players. As we have no written record that Callumjk is the rightful owner of the stations and surrounding town, F15-P17 will be up for general auction at the next GSM. Any player (including Callumjk) who would like to take ownership may request it by emailing the staff.

However! Because the town was completely destroyed without the use of WorldEdit, and a rail line was damaged in the process, the town has been rolled back to its prior state and the players who took it over have been issued with double warnings. We consider this to be one of the most egregious cases of griefing we’ve seen in a long time. In fact, when we started investigating, there was no trace of Callumjk’s town anywhere except the CoreProtect logs, and approximately 200 chunks of space were affected by the damage.

So, to recap: F15-P17 has been rolled back and is now up for general auction.

The Mole 9

Unrelated to the staff meeting, but undoubtedly an exciting event nonetheless: The Mole returns this Saturday, April 21 at 7pm UTC for its ninth season. You can learn more about the game and rules on its wiki page here.